The Marshall Tucker Band at the UofM Crisler Center Auditorium.

Blackfoot opened for them, with Train, Train. It was freakin' awesome.

Joe Jackson's band when he toured for Night and Day was great. That show really jumped.

Del McCoury's band is great. (Bluegrass)

One of the best shows I haver saw was Richard Thompson, but it was only three players, so maybe not quite a band. Still . . .

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:
The WHO. Saw them on their first US tour in, believe it or not, Jackson, MS. Treated to the music and then the whole destruction thing.

RMD

That would have been something, all right. Cool.

The Ramones with my toes up against the riser they performed from, feet or inches away depending how much Johnny moved up and back.

Albert King playing at My Brother's Place, Long Island (1973).

Very close second: Jethro Tull at Syracuse University's Manley Field House (1972)

Jethro Tull. Aqualung tour and Thick as a Brick tour. Locomotive Breath is something to see live.

quote:

Joe Jackson's band when he toured for Night and Day was great. That show really jumped.

That's a great album. Not on it, but immediately, Friday comes to mind. That song cooks!



Sorry for the drift.

quote:

Originally posted by k5blazer:
Jethro Tull. Aqualung tour and Thick as a Brick tour. Locomotive Breath is something to see live.

Big Tull fan here. First saw them on the War Child tour and many since then. Ian Anderson is a genius.

quote:

Originally posted by k5blazer:
Jethro Tull. Aqualung tour and Thick as a Brick tour. Locomotive Breath is something to see live.

Grew up on JT, never seen them live.

Tool at The Tabernacle in Atlanta. The Tabernacle is an old church that holds like 2500 people. Tool kicked off their 2001 world tour there, played three other shows in the US at similar small venues, left the country then came back and played arenas. It was an awesome night at a legendary venue.

Garth Brooks puts on a fantastic show too. His was the first concert I ever saw, and then the first concert I ever worked once I got into the industry. I’ve seen him a few times since and he always kills it.

Garth Brooks ≠ Band, but you knew that

As great as Albert King is, he isn’t either.

Who’s the drummer for the “Joe Jackson Band?”

Little Feat w Lowell George.
Stumbled across Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal on a riverboat out of New Orleans.

The Allman Brothers band.

Followed closely by the Who.

Frank Zappa and his band were incredible.

Australian Pink Floyd were also incredible. I never got to see the original Pink Floyd.

Tom Petty and The Heart Breakers in the mid 90's at the San Diego Sports Arena. Close second would be Jimmy Page and Robert Plant also at the Sports Arena.

Project 86!

Hands down Queen.

All this Rush talk led me to check my ticket stubs and I left out a big one. My first Rush show was September 17, 1982 at McNichols Arena on their Signals tour. Three weeks before that on August 30th we saw Queen on their Hot Space tour. Those guys were pretty good too.

Band? Hmmm. Pearl Jam. 1993. They were the biggest band on the planet at the time, Eddie’s ego hadn’t gotten totally out of control yet, and they were incredible live. Sadly I saw them again two years later and it was one of the worst shows I ever saw live.

Best show? Prince. 2000. He had just started doing all his hits live again. He teased Purple Rain by playing the intro chords several times during his set. EVERYONE knew that was the closer, but it didn’t matter. By the time he played it for real the audience was frantic. When he got to the sing along at the end it literally felt like the arena was going to blow apart. No one, NO ONE, could handle a crowd like Prince. His showmanship and pure charisma were otherworldly.

Now if you mean most talented and tightest band, I saw Victor Wooten and Dennis Chambers put on a clinic once. We were at Memphis Drum shop in a room about the size of half a basketball court. And that’s being generous. Wooten is an absolute monster on bass and Dennis Chambers is probably in the top 5 drummers ever to live. They laid down so much funk that day it could be seen from space. They had a local guy on guitar. He was talented, but more of a shredder and out of his element. Didn’t matter, they had enough soul between the two of them to cover him.

Probably the most fun I ever had at a show was watching Steve Vai play a tiny little bar. Never mind the stage was the size of a decent public bathroom. He had his full rack of amps. Terry Bozzio’s drum kit took up 90% of the free space. I was so close to the stage that there was a real chance that we’d have to catch Vai if he forgot how small a stage he was on and fell off. Good god almighty that man can shred a guitar. I was 19 and was with who I was convinced was the love of my life. She’d never been to a rock show before. To this day I can still see her standing there with the look of awe. Good times. Good times.

Lyle Lovett and his Large Band when the album fist came out.

I have seen countless one-off performances of a bunch of bands- everything from Aerosmith to The Who. But the best band I've seen was The Replacements. Seen them nine times, but as fans of the band know, it is always a crapshoot what kind of show one will witness; a drunken shitshow of sloppy half-assed covers, or the 2nd Coming of The Stones circa 1972. I have seen a couple of them that were the latter in a small club setting, still the best shows of my life.

Honorable mention to R.E.M.; saw them a few times, the last one was on their Document tour. But I remember one show in a small club a few years earlier and they were a little rough around the edges and loud, but the best band on the planet that night.